Google, China, and the Russian Spy Case

When I signed on to Google from Beijing on Thursday, the message beneath the U.S. search bar, usually reserved for in-house advertisements for YouTube and the like, was the following: “Learn about your First Amendment rights with 1 for All.”

It was only a coincidence that it appeared on a day* that Google found itself in a dance-fight again with Beijing over the fate of its Chinese language search service. The latest two-step: In the three months since Google closed its mainland search service, saying it would no longer censor search results, it has been automatically redirecting Chinese users to an uncensored Hong Kong site, but Chinese authorities have now told them to stop that end-run on the system, so Google will find out eventually if that means it’s going to be shut down in China once and for all. In the meantime, it has added a big fat link on its Google.cn page, which allows users to link to the Hong Kong site—a nod (but a small one) to the Chinese rules of the game. Will that appease the Internet authorities?

Nobody yet knows. (Their Chinese license was up for renewal or cancellation on June 30th, but as of this writing, nothing has changed.) The Chinese press has reacted with a dose of triumphalism to the news that Google still hoped to keep a presence on the mainland after all: “Google.cn Probably On the Way Out, Google ‘Kneels Down and Begs’ for Netizens to Bookmark its Hong Kong Page” was how International Finance News put it. Reaction from Chinese Web users is a reminder of how polarizing the Google issue has become. Over at the relatively open forum on Baidu, some commenters predicted that in this game of “hide and seek” with the government, it was possible that “Google is going to win this,” though, in fairness, one added, “The government is not stupid.”

The most practical concern was that trying to sign on to the Hong Kong site from the mainland could end up being unreasonably slow: “Even searching for “Hu” [the name of the Chinese President, and therefore highly sensitive] you will be blocked for two minutes,” one commentator wrote.

A notable theme in the coverage, however, is that the Chinese position on censorship has evolved over the months of the Google case from one of sheepish avoidance of the subject to a far more confident embrace of the fact that the government damn-well-does censor the Web, thank you very much. In that spirit, Xinhua asked how Google’s new strategy could purport, in the same breath, to be “abiding by Chinese law” but also “no longer willing to censor results.” As I’ve described before, Chinese technologists have adopted a clear strategy of openly comparing China’s censorship practices to the filtering of child pornography and neo-Nazi content in the West. In that spirit, Web users seized on the Russian-spy case unfolding this week to make a strained, but amusing, comparison: As one put it, “‘U.S. officials indicated that Anna Chapman was discovered to have been in contact with the Russians many times, and used to send information using Wi-fi in cafes.’ This tells you that America bugs everyone; there is no such thing as freedom! And Google is here selling freedom of speech. It’s ridiculous!”

*Initially, I wrote that a coincidence seemed hard to believe on a day like this. Google’s Chris Gaither wrote to me to say that it’s been in the works for months: “Our support for the 1 for All campaign is unrelated to any international events from this week. We’ve been planning this since April, when Google CEO Eric Schmidt spoke at the American Society of News Editors conference in Washington DC. The speaker before Eric was Ken Paulson of the Newseum. Ken spoke passionately about the power of the First Amendment and announced the 1 for All campaign’s July 1 roll-out. We decided then that showing our support for the campaign would be a good way to celebrate the rights described in the First Amendment, and we’re happy to be joining with the many others supporting 1 for All.”

James Fallows at the Atlantic was at the April event and he has posted more detail on the campaign.

Evan Osnos joined The New Yorker as a staff writer in 2008, and covers politics and foreign affairs.